

O H 0 ^ 

V * 


* • o. .0 > 

«*, a ,V\Va!- *<?„ a* 

.A'M/A. *.,<!> 

** - > 

‘ v 1 J ->', 

^ A * ’ * A' O 




♦* 

S 

c 

S' 


^ •*»*' s '■ •-«* 

' * $\V/'/?S> * « ' 



* V*-*V - 

** *.<* mW/V. ^ 



* cS 
« <$> 




*'7'.'.‘ A <, *■>.. * ,6' ^5. ”*'“. l .T'' <% 

A % ..<*. ^ V ,.•••. A % 

y 'Mfyfs*;* t* o'" «'«Ss®ivl ~ a' / 



O • I 


* V % \ 

** o* ^ *7^T* % *> 

'P 


<- o 



V. ^ ^ s 

^2 . o V . i 


S ,S> 



« Aj5 °4* 

u «> 

+ sr +,*•'•* <y 

-y ,’^L', *> v .iv* 'o. 

\ '•S-.A V *A\SS/A. <V 



.0 ^ • 4 o 

^ ^%vlWSS^ ■> 

3° V'•rr.** .y °o *..,• 


r VI • 




. 0 * *L!nL% ^ 

* \J, ^ ♦ (ASK A ^ 




4 • 


^ c • 

-» \<i 4 ' 

- V* Cr 

■ < 5 °, - 

>v^'. * v % o *<>,•’—'• '> 

A v ^(KValTA 0 ** 

- :$MwIl\ • 

* C.^ ^rv ■* o .V*^. * 

« A, v- <S* 

'<>•»* . 0 ^ O *' .. 5 * A <v 'o'. '»« .G 

+ c° °o ^ .*^r.% C° 

^ ^.MV. .*& ** ^f*. v 

>2sm * o v . ^ or 






v /*SlB>v. «►. ^ ,vVa % *« 

. AW 9 &//A o 

c* ^ : 

* 4 / 

< <K ^ 



..s' A .. 

:> A ^ • k # # 4 ^ . 

° ^ * % JFffttfa* + ^ 

■>*_ <. t > - JS)\ll6y>*~ *P. 


^ ^ \ 



^ 0 



y o o ‘.fgPv O o A \ 

« • o o <V ^ s • • , *> 

f - ~ ^ a .A ^ ^ A^ * 

* ,^Va- V . 




• ^''V ° 

* a <* ° 


c^> 'A 
* 4 / Ao- 

« 4- v * 'Ttf/uar > . 

'"iy • • * S '/ " ’ ’ A’ 

o*"* . >• ' * ^ <y 6 

iv i /✓io « r C. * 

f,.^ .v-^P . ,V ^,. a ;< 
























THE CRUCIFIERS 


BY 


LYMAN ABBOTT 

it 



THE WOMANS PRESS 
1923 




Copyright, 1923, by 
The National Board of the 
Young Womens Christian Associations 
of the United States of America 


Printed in the United States 



4 


© Cl A 6 9 S 0 5 2 



CONTENTS 


Foreword 7 

The Institutions of Irreligion 19 
The Worldly-Minded Church Member 
The Ambitious Ecclesiastic 49 
The Cowardly Politician 65 
The Callous Profiteers 79 
The First Pagan Convert 


89 



Foreword 


T HE following chapters are of inter¬ 
est, not merely because of their 
inherent worth as studies of the forces 
which sent Jesus to death centuries 
ago, and which still crucify his spirit, 
but also as the last contributions of the 
most widely influential teacher of re¬ 
ligion in this country. Judged by the 
number of persons whom he reached 
through his voice and pen, and by the 
extent to which he shaped their think¬ 
ing, Lyman Abbott was unquestion¬ 
ably the foremost doctor of the Church 
in America in his time, and one of the 
half-dozen most potent teachers of 
Christianity in our national history. It 
was not that he professed to be an 
original scholar adding discoveries of 
his own to the knowledge of his gener¬ 
ation; but that, with singularly open 


7 


mind and the power of entire assimi¬ 
lation, he met each movement of 
thought, through a long life-time filled 
with momentous changes in opinion, 
and used each to make more plain and 
persuasive the message of Christ. 

Dr. Abbott possessed the inquiring 
spirit which examines fearlessly, and 
the logical mind which reasons calmly, 
conjoined with the reverent and pas¬ 
sionate soul which adores devoutly 
and consecrates itself with enthusiasm. 
He has told us often that from his ear¬ 
liest days, God and immortality were 
luminously self-evident truths for him. 
His mind was like a roomy house, 
where certain beliefs were the perma¬ 
nent dwellers, and where the door was 
always thrown wide in hospitality to 
all current ideas. The home circle was 
not very numerous: Dr. Abbott lived 
by a few great convictions, but he en- 


8 


tertained countless mental guests, and 
made welcome in his household of faith 
many whom his contemporaries re¬ 
garded as wholly uncongenial with 
Christian faith. In that inclusive mind 
they were soon made to appear the fast 
friends and helpful partners of the be¬ 
lieving household. 

He carefully trained himself in a 
simple and picturesque style, so as to 
be understood by all sorts and condi¬ 
tions. His thought was always suffi¬ 
ciently fresh and rich to hold the 
attention and satisfy the intelligence of 
college faculties and students; and at 
the same time he expressed himself in 
such plain and homely fashion that he 
was a favorite preacher to groups of 
foreign-born industrial workers. Like 
his Master, the common people heard 
him gladly. Few ministers of religion 
have appealed so successfully to so 


9 


many different groups in the commu¬ 
nity. Intellectuals were caught by his 
modernity, commercial folk by his 
practicality, the aesthetic by his sym¬ 
pathy with their devotion to beauty, 
plain folk by his simple interpretation 
of the elemental feelings, the saintly by 
the maturity of his spirit, and inhabit¬ 
ants of the outer court by the breadth 
of his human sympathy. 

As one reads these quiet medita¬ 
tions of an octogenarian disciple, one 
recalls with amusement how even 
within relatively recent years Dr. Ab¬ 
bott was viewed with suspicion by 
many fellow-Christians as a radical 
subverter of the historic faith. It has 
always been the lot of the Church’s 
leading teachers to be accused of her¬ 
esy. In reality he was one of the most 
valuable constructive factors of his day, 
making Christianity credible and co- 


10 


gent to thousands who might else have 
been lost to the Church. While others 
were conserving forms of thought, he 
conserved the religious life, and a vast 
number of men and women to Chris¬ 
tian discipleship. All his long life he 
sat humbly in the school-room of 
Christ, studying his words and life and 
studying all other things in his light, 
worshiping Him as the image of the 
invisible God, and devoting his every 
talent to his service. In his many- 
sided career, as an editor, a public 
speaker, and a preacher, he dealt with 
a large variety of topics, and his vital 
and vigorous mind went out to a thou¬ 
sand interests; but he never treated 
any theme without relating it to the 
mind of Christ, and along every line 
of his manifold activity he was always 
an evangelist, seeking to make the 


11 


spirit of Jesus dominate the thought 
and life of men. 

It was this purpose which bound the 
days of his more than five and eighty 
years “each to each in natural piety.” 
One is touched in these chapters to 
hear this venerable prophet turning 
back with affectionate honor to the 
words of his own father. He who in¬ 
spired his childhood with Christian 
faith still lives on in spirit in his ex¬ 
treme age to bless him. And this evi¬ 
dence of deep family affection suggests 
a primary secret of Dr. Abbott's power. 
Along with his acute and disciplined 
intelligence, those who heard or read 
him felt the man's heart. His tribute 
to his wife is an exquisite piece of writ¬ 
ing, but no more beautiful than the 
home life of which it was the fruit. He 
had a rare capacity for friendship, 
which enabled him to overleap barriers 


12 


of years and make himself the comrade 
not only of his own children and chil¬ 
dren’s children, but of many young 
men and women. Scores who will read 
these pages will recall interviews which 
they sought with him in which he made 
them feel themselves companions in 
thought and effort whom he was de¬ 
lighted to know. As the decades rolled 
past, and he survived his contempo¬ 
raries and with unflagging mental and 
physical power became the associate 
of their sons and daughters, and often 
of their grandchildren, he was not only 
one of the most universally honored 
citizens of the Republic and leaders of 
the Church, but one of the most gener¬ 
ally loved figures in our land. 

He spoke so naturally and trustfully 
of death, and wrote so confidently and 
convincingly of the Other Room, that 
to readers of these final messages, pub- 


13 


lished after his departure, these will 
not seem the words of one whose life 
is over, but of one who is going on 
most congenially in the life of that city 
of which the Lamb slain, whom he here 
portrays for us, is the everlasting light. 

Henry Sloane Coffin 


14 









ft 






THE CRUCIFIERS 






























I r 



The Institutions 






















A BOUT the year of my birth my 
^ father, Jacob Abbott, wrote in 
“The Corner Stone” a description of 
the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, from 
which I extract the following para¬ 
graph: 

“We must look at the characters of 
the actors, rather than their deeds; 
for in character we may be similar to 
them, though from the entirely differ¬ 
ent circumstances in which we are 
placed we have not, and we never can 
have the opportunity to commit the 
crimes they perpetrated. I shall en¬ 
deavor, therefore, as I go on to the 
examination of the story, to bring to 
view, as clearly as possible, the char¬ 
acters of those concerned in it; with 
particular reference, too, to the as¬ 
pects which similar characters would 


19 


assume at the present day. If I am 
not very greatly deceived, Pontius 
Pilate and Judas Iscariot, and even the 
Roman soldiers, have far more imita¬ 
tors and followers than is generally 
supposed, and that, too, within the very 
pale of the Christian Church.” 

In the spirit of this paragraph, I pro¬ 
pose to present sketches of five typical 
characters engaged in the crucifixion: 

The Worldly-Minded Church Mem¬ 
ber. 

The Ambitious Ecclesiastic. 

The Cowardly Politician. 

The Callous Profiteers. 

The First Pagan Convert. 

But if we are to understand these 
characters we must understand those 
elements in the community of hostility 
to Jesus which by their action they rep¬ 
resented and which gave them their 
power. 


20 


The history of Israel begins with the 
Exodus; what precedes in the Bible is 
the record of prehistoric traditions. 
The foundation, political and religious, 
of Israel is found in the Ten Command¬ 
ments. That religion was very simple: 
reverence for God, respect for parents, 
preservation of a certain time from 
drudgery for the cultivation of the 
spirit, and regard for the four funda¬ 
mental rights of man—to his person, 
his property, his family, and his reputa¬ 
tion. Nothing was said of temple or 
priesthood or sacrifice, or ceremonial 
obligations of any description. These 
were all additions of a later date. 

These additions respecting temple, 
priesthood, and sacrifice Jesus disre¬ 
garded. He returned to the simple 
religion of the Ten Commandments. 
He attended the Temple because its 
outer court was a convenient forum 


21 


where He could teach the people. He 
attended the synagogue because in his 
earlier ministry its pulpits were open 
to Him. But He never offered a sacri¬ 
fice and never recommended sacrifices 
to his disciples; He openly proclaimed 
the forgiveness of God on no other con¬ 
dition than repentance and the resolve 
to enter on a new life; He specifically 
taught that God could be worshiped 
as well without the Temple as within, 
and foretold the destruction of the 
Temple at no distant day. 

He did not attack the priesthood. 
But the priest is officially a mediator 
between God and man, and Christ’s 
teaching left no place for such a medi¬ 
ator. He taught that God is a Father 
to whom his children may come freely 
at any time and in any place—the pa¬ 
gans as well as the Jews, sinners as 
well as saints. Whoever seeks finds; 


22 


whoever knocks, to him the door is 
opened. It is opened to the humble 
and penitent publican; it is closed 
to the self-satisfied Pharisee. Christ 
never referred to public worship in 
either Temple or synagogue. But He 
laid great emphasis, both by precept 
and example, on the privilege and the 
duty of private prayer. 

And He paid no attention to the code 
of ceremonial obligation which Jewish 
Puritanism had added to the five simple 
ethical laws of the Ten Command¬ 
ments. Neither He nor his disciples 
observed the fasts appointed by the 
elders. The elaborate code which pre¬ 
scribed what the people might and 
what they might not do on the Sabbath 
He disregarded. The complex system 
of washings which the elders had es¬ 
tablished He cast aside as without legal 
authority or moral value. 


23 


Nor did Christ merely reject the tra¬ 
ditions of his time; He set aside the 
traditional habits. He fermented men; 
stirred them to think for themselves; 
stimulated independent thinking. He 
spake with authority, not by substitut¬ 
ing a new tradition for a rival one, but 
by so presenting truth that the minds 
and hearts of his hearers recognized it 
on his bare presentation of it. Often by 
a question He revealed to men a truth 
which they possessed and did not know 
that they possessed it. “Why do you 
call me good? ,, “Who do you say is 
neighbor?” “What do you think is the 
chief commandment?” “What think 
ye of Christ? Whose son is he?” 
“Whom do ye say that I am?” He did 
not think for his congregation. I do 
not recall that He ever told them what 
they must think. But He habitually in¬ 
vited them to share his thinking with 
24 


Him. If a heretic is, what the diction¬ 
ary tells us he is, a man who gives forth 
his own opinions when they are in con¬ 
flict with the received opinions of his 
age, there never was such a heretic as 
Jesus Christ. 

He was a social heretic as well. He 
set himself against the established 
order; was in the true sense of the term 
a revolutionary preacher. The estab¬ 
lished order was one of aristocracy in 
the State as well as of hierarchy in the 
Church. There were few rich and 
many poor; few wise and many igno¬ 
rant. Christ paid no deference to 
wealth; very little to wisdom. For 
Himself and his immediate followers 
He did not desire wealth, and He 
scorned it in others unless they were 
using it in public service. The man 
who could see no use for his abundant 
harvest but to hoard it He called a fool; 


25 


and honest scorn is the hardest kind of 
rebuke to bear. He assailed scholars 
unless they were using their scholar¬ 
ship to enlighten others less wise than 
themselves. He was a great leveler— 
a leveler up, not down. He did not 
merely teach that rich men should 
contribute to the poor and wise men 
furnish instruction to the ignorant. 
He taught that the function of the rich 
is to serve the poor, of the strong to 
serve the weak, of the wise to serve the 
ignorant, until classes are abolished and 
society becomes one great brotherhood 
of man. And the established order was 
aroused against Him. His popularity 
added to his offense. First the leaders 
of his time despised Him; then they 
feared Him; and they ended by hating 
Him. 

This hate was intensified by race 
prejudice. And to prejudice, whether 


26 


of class, religion, or race, Jesus showed 
no quarter. The Jewish religionists 
believed that they believed in a king¬ 
dom of God. But they did not. They 
believed in a kingdom of Israel. Of 
course they knew that a rebellion 
against Rome by the little province of 
Palestine would be hopeless unless 
they had powerful allies. They be¬ 
lieved they had such an ally; they be¬ 
lieved that “God was on their side.” 
Doubtless there were teachers in 
Christ’s time who gave a spiritual in¬ 
terpretation to the Old Testament 
prophecies. But the current opinion 
was that Jehovah had made a covenant 
with Israel and in fulfillment of that 
covenant would give her the rulership 
of the world and the heathen nations 
would serve under her yoke. 

That notion, curiously revived in our 
time, Jesus repudiated. He told Nico- 


27 


demus, honored master in the Church* 
that he needed to be born again as 
much as if he had been a pagan; and 
He told the people that Zaccheus, the 
hated tax-gatherer, who had repented 
of his oppressions and declared his pur¬ 
pose to do all that he could to repair 
his injustice, was a child of Abraham. 
He told the Jews that He had never 
seen so much faith in all Israel as He 
saw in a Roman centurion, and He told 
a crowd of scornful scribes and Phari¬ 
sees that drunkards and harlots would 
go into the kingdom of heaven before 
them. At the beginning of his ministry 
He told the congregation at Nazareth 
that the Jews were not God’s favorites, 
and at the close of his ministry He told 
the Jewish leaders in the Temple at 
Jerusalem that God would take from 
them the kingdom and give it to an- 


28 


other people who would bring forth its 
fruits. 

An angry mob drove Him from the 
synagogue at the beginning of his min¬ 
istry; an angry mob wrested from re¬ 
luctant Pilate the death sentence at the 
end. 

The elements which thus gave power 
to the leaders in the tragedy of the cru¬ 
cifixion still exist in human society, and 
wherever they exist still interpose to 
his cause the same bitter hostility. 
Whenever scrupulous obedience to cer¬ 
emonial regulations supplants the spirit 
of self-sacrifice in daily life, whenever 
ambition for acquisition supplants am¬ 
bition for service, whenever fear of the 
crowd paralyzes the courage needed to 
control the crowd, there will be found 
a Caiaphas, a Judas, or a Pilate, or 
perhaps all three in unconscious co- 


29 


operation. As my father said, the op¬ 
portunity to commit the crime they 
committed will never occur again; but 
the sins which incited to that crime— 
ambition, greed, and cowardice—still 
exist and are ever the same. 


30 



The Worldly-dMinded 
Church ^Member 





























































































































































I N these brief sketches of “The Cruci- 
fiers” I have made free use of my 
“Jesus of Nazareth,” published in 1882 
but now out of print, and of a course 
of lectures on the life of Christ deliv¬ 
ered in 1887 but never published in 
this country; like those publications, 
these sketches are based on the Four 
Gospels. As the authenticity of these 
narratives has been called in question, 
it is proper to advise the reader that I 
began the study of the Gospels over 
sixty years ago, that it has been con¬ 
tinued with intermissions ever since, 
that in that study I have read, I hope 
with an open mind, the writings of ra¬ 
tionalistic, Jewish, Roman Catholic, 
and Protestant scholars of various 
schools, and that the conclusion I early 
reached, confirmed by subsequent stud- 


33 


ies, is that the three Gospels of Mat¬ 
thew, Mark, and Luke are trustworthy 
historical documents; that all three are 
founded, as Luke says his is, on pre¬ 
vious material; that they were not writ¬ 
ten with a theological or dogmatic 
purpose, and are marvelously free from 
personal and party prejudice; and that 
the Fourth Gospel was written either 
by John or by some of his disciples act¬ 
ing as his amanuenses or reporters, and 
gives us the fullest and best account 
of Christ’s ministry in Judea. In this 
chapter on Judas it is necessary to rely 
somewhat upon surmise, since no one 
of the Evangelists has attempted any 
analysis of his enigmatical character. 

Judas of Kerioth, a small village 
about thirty miles south of Jerusalem, 
was the only Judean among the twelve. 
Presumably he belonged by birth and 


34 


education to the priestly party, was 
often at the Temple, and was trained 
from his earliest youth in reverence for 
its sacrificial services, certainly shared 
in the universal expectations of a tem¬ 
poral Messiah and in the almost univer¬ 
sal prejudice which looked with rancor 
upon the Gentile world. The brief 
glimpses we obtain of his life indicate 
that he was in temperament hard, 
sensuous, materialistic, and was pos¬ 
sessed of the too common vice of the 
descendants of Jacob, avarice. He be¬ 
came the treasurer of the little com¬ 
pany, and, according to John, was not 
always honest in the management of 
his trust. 

So long as Christ preached only, 
“The kingdom of God is at hand,” Ju¬ 
das followed him, undoubting. His 
faith that he would soon share in the 
glories of the expected kingdom was 


35 


the common faith of all. It is evident 
from various incidents that Peter ex¬ 
pressed the feeling of the twelve by his 
naive question: “We have forsaken all 
and followed thee; what therefore shall 
we have?” When Christ refused the 
proffered crown, Judas was perplexed; 
when He told the people that it was 
only by death He could enter into his 
kingdom, Judas showed signs of disap¬ 
pointment that did not escape the sensi¬ 
tive heart of John; when in distincter 
language Jesus prophesied his cruci¬ 
fixion, Judas, we may be sure, approved 
Peter’s rebuke of the Master; when 
Jesus uttered his first Philippic against 
the Pharisees, Judas would be one of 
the first to instigate, if not himself to 
utter, the caution, “Knowest thou that 
the Pharisees were offended?” Such 
teachings of Jesus as the parable of the 
rich fool, and that of Dives and Laza- 


36 


rus, and his rejection of the rich young 
ruler, Judas would have resented if he 
understood them. 

His religious prejudices must also 
have been often shocked—by Christ’s 
indifference to the Temple and its sacri¬ 
ficial system; by his disregard of the 
ceremonial regulations which orthodox 
Judaism had added to the simple moral 
code of primitive Judaism; by his re¬ 
peated rebukes of the priestly party; 
and by his repeated condemnation of 
race prejudice in such teachings as the 
parable of the Good Samaritan and the 
Prodigal Son. 

With the continuance of Christ’s 
ministry the conflict in the soul of Ju¬ 
das became increasingly bitter. Jesus 
thronged with admirers, promising his 
disciples to sit on twelve thrones, rid¬ 
ing in triumphal procession into Jeru¬ 
salem, Judas was proud to follow; but 
37 


he had no use for a Messiah sitting at 
meat with the despised Zaccheus, ex¬ 
iled from Judea, mobbed from the 
synagogue, stoned from the Temple, 
foretelling his own cruel death and in¬ 
viting his followers to share his cross 
with Him. 

Christ’s teaching on Tuesday in the 
Temple put an end to this conflict in 
the soul of Judas. In those teachings 
Jesus made it clear that the kingdom of 
God was not a Jewish kingdom; the 
vineyard was to be taken from Judah 
and given to heathen nations; her 
house was to be left to her desolate. 
In the revelations of that hour the 
dream of Judas vanished. He seemed 
to himself the victim of an unwarrant¬ 
able delusion. He rehearsed in his 
mind the repeated promises of the Mas¬ 
ter, and forgot the warnings and in¬ 
terpretations which accompanied them. 


38 


He was the victim of an unwarrantable 
delusion, but it was that of his own 
selfish and sensuous imagination. 

To abandon a failing cause, to return 
to Judaism because Christianity had 
nothing to offer to him, to return 
empty-handed and confessing failure, 
was more than the sensitive ambition of 
Judas could endure. But why return 
empty-handed? For over two years 
the Judaic party had sought in vain the 
charmed life of the Galilean rabbi. He 
that should destroy for Judaism this 
young Goliath who had defied it, would 
he not receive the hosannas of victory 
from priest and from people? Judas 
saw himself crowned by the party of 
his youth and the vote of the Chief 
Council. This , not the paltry sum of 
thirty pieces of silver, was the price 
his imagination offered him for the be¬ 
trayal of his Lord. He forgot that al- 


39 


ways the reward of treachery is scorn— 
scorn heaviest from those who profit 
by it. So did Arnold forget. So does 
every traitor. 

Gradually resentment developed into 
revenge. His dark thoughts, gradually 
as they had grown, carefully as they 
had been hidden under an almost im¬ 
penetrable reserve, Jesus had divined. 
More than once he had told his disci¬ 
ples, “The Son of man shall be 
betrayed.” The disciples on such occa¬ 
sions looked with wondering suspicion 
at each other; most of all perhaps at 
Judas, who was not a Galilean. If 
these occasions did not reveal Judas to 
the twelve, they revealed him to him¬ 
self. Did the Master hope that such 
indication to Judas of the path he was 
traveling would cause him to turn 
back? It had a contrary effect. Judas 
writhed in angrier indignation, because 


40 


he understood the application and the 
justice of the warning. 

Such was his state of mind when a 
very simple incident crystallized grow¬ 
ing design into an instant and well- 
defined resolve. On the return of Jesus 
from the conflicts in the Temple to the 
home of Martha and Mary, they made 
an entertainment for Him; Judas of 
course was among the guests. The 
supper was Martha’s homage to Jesus. 
After the supper Mary offered Him 
hers—a box of very valuable ointment. 
With it she anointed the head of Jesus, 
the remainder she poured on Jesus’ 
feet. Judas forgot his careful reticence, 
and openly condemned the waste. He 
even succeeded in communicating his 
sentiments to some of the other disci¬ 
ples. Christ sharply rebuked the re- 
buker. “Let her alone,” He said. 


41 


Then He added with infinite pathos, 
“She hath done this to my burial.” 

The rebuke thus administered to 
Judas was less severe than the one 
which Jesus had not long before admin¬ 
istered to Peter. But impulsive love 
was the keynote to Peter’s character; 
self-love was the master passion of the 
soul of Judas. Love accepts any re¬ 
buke ; self-love submits to none. Judas 
escaped at the earliest moment from 
the room, sought some of the chief 
priests and communicated to them his 
readiness to betray his former Master. 
Even in the excitement of that hour he 
did not forget his ruling passion. The 
priests agreed to pay him thirty shekels 
for his service. The die was cast, and 
Judas only awaited the opportunity to 
fulfill his design. 

I need not here retell the familiar 
story of the betrayal. The crime was 


42 


committed when a bargain was made, 
and here it is the crime of Judas which 
concerns us. 

In the seventh chapter of Romans 
Paul has told the story of a similar con¬ 
flict in his own soul between the flesh 
and the spirit. “I do not understand,” 
he says, “why I act as I do. For what 
I would, that I do not; and what I hate, 
that I do.” What reader of this article 
does not know that experience? Only 
a very perfect saint or a hopelessly 
hardened sinner can be wholly ignorant 
of it. Christ warned his disciples of 
the peril of such a divided life in the 
saying, “Ye cannot serve God and 
Mammon.” But the persistent en¬ 
deavor to do the impossible is not un¬ 
common. Amiel pictures the spirit of 
allegiance to the world graphically. 
“ ‘All the world’ is the greatest of pow¬ 
ers; it is sovereign and calls itself we . 


43 


We dress, we dine, we walk, we go out, 
we come in, like this and not like that. 
This we is always right, whatever it 
does. . . . What we does or says is 
called custom, what it thinks is called 
opinion, what it believes to be beauti¬ 
ful or good is called fashion.” 

Whoever accepts we as his sovereign 
in business, in politics, and in so¬ 
ciety during the week and endeavors 
to appease his conscience by adoring 
Christ as his sovereign in church ser¬ 
vices on Sunday; whoever, professing 
to accept Christ’s principles as his 
guide, compromises them in a vain en¬ 
deavor to make them harmonize with 
the custom, the opinion, and the fash¬ 
ion of the time, has entered on the path 
which Judas trod to its tragic end. 
Paul found escape by his faith in a par¬ 
doning and life-giving God. Judas 
surrendered to his demon, and then 


44 


tried to flee from himself by endeavor¬ 
ing to flee from life. To what by his 
suicide did he flee? At death the im¬ 
penetrable curtain falls. We do not 
know. 


45 















T he oAmbitious Ecclesiastic 









A mbition (that is, the love of 
k power) is a less sordid vice than 
avarice (that is, the love of acquisi¬ 
tion), but it is more subtle in its devel¬ 
opment and more perilous to others in 
its results. Avarice isolates its victim. 
Ambition is a group vice; for power 
can be obtained by one only as he 
shares its exercise with others. No au¬ 
tocrat can be the father of a million 
children. He cannot be omnipotent, 
because he cannot be omnipresent and 
omniscient. The Czar had his Bureau; 
the Pope has his Vatican; the Ameri¬ 
can boss his machine. Avarice is lonely 
in the Church; ambition is not. Ambi¬ 
tious ecclesiastics have been almost as 
common in history as ambitious rulers. 

Shameful degeneracy and disorder 
characterized in the first century of the 


49 


present era the miscalled Holy Land. 
The functions of the courts of Judea 
were usurped by their heathen con¬ 
querors. The Great Congregation, the 
House of Representatives of ancient 
Israel, had long since disappeared; 
such of the political and judicial func¬ 
tions once exercised by the Court of 
the Princes as were permitted to a con¬ 
quered people by Rome were exercised 
by the Sanhedrim. The monarchy no 
longer existed. The high priesthood, 
an office partly religious, partly politi¬ 
cal, was filled by creatures of Rome, 
appointed and removed at the pleasure 
of the Roman governor. This office, 
originally held for life, was held during 
a hundred and seven years by twenty- 
seven appointees. With delicate sar¬ 
casm John describes Caiaphas as high 
priest for that year. 

But for nearly fifty years this office 


50 


had been really under the control of 
Annas. He seems to have been one of 
that class of politicians who are willing 
that others should occupy the place of 
state provided that they themselves 
may really wield its powers. Five of 
his sons held in succession the no 
longer sacred office. It was held at this 
juncture by a son-in-law, Joseph Caia- 
phas. Both father and son were crea¬ 
tures of the Roman Court; both 
belonged to the Sadducaic party and 
were openly infidel concerning some 
of the articles of the Hebrew faith re¬ 
garded as fundamental truths by the 
Pharisees or Orthodox Jews. Both 
were professional politicians. The pa¬ 
triotism of these priests was that of 
' the place-hunter. “If we let him 
alone,” they said, “we shall lose both 
our place and our nation.” In their 
view, it was far better that Jesus should 


51 


lose his life and the Judean courts their 
purity than that they should lose their 
offices. 

To Annas, as the moving spirit of the 
priestly party, Jesus was first taken. 
Upon Annas, really more than upon 
Pilate, more than upon Caiaphas, who 
was simply the executioner of his 
father’s will, the responsibility for the 
crucifixion rests. But Annas had no in¬ 
tention of bearing that responsibility. 
He sent the prisoner at once, bound as 
He was, to Caiaphas. A preliminary 
examination accompanied by acts of 
lawless violence took place while the 
Sanhedrim was assembling, but thrice 
had the cock from some distant garden 
been heard to crow before the court 
was convened and the formal trial be¬ 
gun. 

The Jewish books contain an elabo¬ 
rate and, on the whole, a remarkably 
52 


merciful code. The court could not be 
convened by night; the accused could 
not be condemned on his own confes¬ 
sion; two witnesses were necessary to 
secure sentence of death; these wit¬ 
nesses must be examined in the pres¬ 
ence of the accused; he had the 
opportunity of cross-examination; a 
perjurer was liable to the penalty which 
would have been visited in case of con¬ 
viction upon the prisoner; the latter 
had a right to be heard in his own de¬ 
fense; a verdict could not be rendered 
on the same day as the trial, nor on a 
feast day; the discovery of new evi¬ 
dence, even after the preparations for 
execution had commenced, entitled the 
condemned to a new hearing. 

But it is a mistake to trace the actual 
history of the Jewish courts in the rules 
and precedents of their books. One 
might as well attempt to form a correct 


53 


conception of the trials under Lord 
Jeffreys from a study of the statutes of 
James II, or the actual procedures of a 
Roman court from a perusal of the 
Pandects of Justinian. It is the very 
curse of degenerate and disordered 
times that laws and precedents are set 
aside by passion and by partisan inter¬ 
est. 

It was certainly so in the case of 
Jesus. The letter of the law forbidding 
trials by night seems to have been re¬ 
garded, but its spirit was violated by a 
midnight examination and by a final 
trial in the first gray twilight of early 
dawn. A quorum of the court was 
present, but it was convened in haste so 
great and with notice so inadequate 
that at least one of the most influen¬ 
tial friends of Jesus seems to have had 
no opportunity to participate in its 
deliberations. Witnesses were sum- 


54 


moned, and discrepancies in their 
testimony were noted; but the just and 
reasonable rule requiring the concur¬ 
rent testimony of two was openly and 
almost contemptuously disregarded. 
An opportunity was formally offered 
Jesus to be heard in his own behalf, 
but no adequate time was afforded Him 
to secure witnesses or prepare for his 
defense, and the spirit of the court de¬ 
nied Him audience, though its formal 
rules permitted Him a hearing. Fi¬ 
nally, all other means of securing his 
conviction having failed, in violation 
alike of law and justice, Jesus was put 
under oath and required, in defiance of 
his protest, to bear testimony against 
Himself. The law requiring a day’s 
deliberation was openly set aside, and 
with haste as unseemly as it was illegal 
the prisoner was sentenced and exe¬ 
cuted within less than twelve hours 


55 


after his arrest—within less than six 
after the formal trial. 

But vaulting ambition had over¬ 
leaped itself. Caiaphas and his co-con¬ 
spirators had not preserved their of¬ 
fices. In less than fifty years the 
Roman legions had destroyed Jerusa¬ 
lem, demolished the Temple, and, with 
the accompaniment of unbelievable 
cruelty, had scattered the people and 
destroyed the nation. As a nation its 
life has never been renewed. 

There was but one possible escape 
from the tragedy which Jesus had fore¬ 
seen more clearly than his enemies had 
foreseen it. That one escape Jesus had 
in vain pointed out to a people who 
would not see. If the Jewish nation 
would fulfill its divinely appointed mis¬ 
sion, the people must abandon their 
superstitious notion that Israel was 
God’s favorite, that He Who had deliv- 


56 


ered their fathers from the armies of 
Egypt and the rule of Pharaoh would 
deliver the sons from the armies of 
Rome and the rule of Caesar. They 
must adopt toward the Roman Govern¬ 
ment a policy of submission. Resist¬ 
ance was immoral: they had no right to 
accept the coin of Caesar in their mar¬ 
kets and refuse the tribute which 
helped support his Government. Re¬ 
sistance was impossible; for what king 
with ten thousand could hope to meet 
in battle another king with twenty 
thousand ? For this reason Jesus coun¬ 
seled his disciples to submit to the un¬ 
just exactions of the Roman military 
rule; for this reason He bid Peter put 
up his sword. Jesus was no Anarchist. 
Whether He would have led a revolu¬ 
tion against the unjust government 
imposed upon his people if conditions 
had been such as to give any promise 


57 


of success we cannot tell. But He 
would riot live under the protection of 
a government and at the same time re¬ 
pudiate its authority and resist the en¬ 
forcement of its laws. This, not an 
indiscriminating policy of non-resis¬ 
tance, is the meaning of Christ's often 
misinterpreted and misapplied teach¬ 
ing. 

There was one hope for Israel, and 
only one. They must abandon their 
traditional ambition for a political 
dominion over other world peoples and 
substitute ambition for a spiritual do¬ 
minion in other world peoples. The 
kingdom of God would come without 
observation; it would grow up gradu¬ 
ally and secretly, as a plant grows from 
seed sown in the ground. Israel might 
confer this kingdom on other peoples, 
but could not impose it on them. Jesus 
would have his disciples fulfill the 


58 


prophecies of the Old Testament by 
destroying the fear of a host of immoral 
gods and goddesses which ruled in the 
hearts of pagan peoples and implanting 
in its place a spirit of loyalty for one 
righteous God who demands righteous¬ 
ness of his children and demands noth¬ 
ing else; He would have them supplant 
a religion of priestly ceremonies in a 
temple by the religion of doing justly, 
loving mercy, and walking humbly with 
God in daily life. And they could not 
overthrow paganism in Rome unless 
they first overthrew paganism in their 
own hearts. Such a spiritual revolu¬ 
tion would have saved Israel, but it 
would have destroyed the power of the 
priestly party. That such a spiritual 
revolution in Israel, such a substitution 
of a national ideal of spiritual power in 
the hearts of men for the then popular 
ideal of political control of the conduct 


59 


and the fortunes of men, might have 
saved the nation the priests could not 
see, but they could see that it would 
destroy their prestige and their power, 
and they conspired to put Jesus to 
death that they might save themselves 
and their offices. 

I leave this study of the character 
and policy of Annas and his son-in-law 
to the reflections of my readers with 
this brief paragraph of application 
taken from my father’s “Corner 
Stone”: 

“The spirit of the high priests reigns 
still in the world—in many a heart 
which puts the splendor of forms, or 
the stability of an ecclesiastical organi¬ 
zation, in place of the progress of pure 
heartfelt piety. Many a pastor would 
prefer having a man in his congrega¬ 
tion rather than in another man’s 


60 


church, and will really regret the prog¬ 
ress of religion if he sees its current 
flowing out of his own communion. 
How many times have professed 
friends of God stopped suddenly the 
progress of his cause by contending 
about the division of the fruits of its 
success? They think they are punctil¬ 
ious for the order and regulation of the 
Church. So did Caiaphas. They sac¬ 
rifice the interests of the soul for the 
sake of scrupulous adherence to what 
they deem the letter of the law. This 
was exactly the sin of the priests and 
the Pharisees. The law of God and 
attachment to his prescribed ordi¬ 
nances is their pretended motive, while 
love of personal influence or denomi¬ 
national ascendency is the real one. So 
it was with these crucifiers of the Sav¬ 
iour. There may be a great difference 
in the degree in which these feelings 


61 


are exhibited, but let those who cherish 
them study the case and see if they can 
find any difference in kind. We can 
find none. Whoever puts his rank and 
station, and the interests of that divi¬ 
sion of the Church to which he belongs, 
on which perhaps his rank and station 
depend, in competition with the prog¬ 
ress of real, heartfelt, genuine piety 
in the world, will find, if he is honest, 
that the spirit of the Jewish Sanhedrim 
is precisely his.” 


62 


The Cowardly Politician 


* 




T HE kingdom of Herod, dependent 
on the power of the Roman Gov¬ 
ernment, had fallen to pieces with the 
death of Herod, and the southern prov¬ 
ince had passed under the rule of 
Pilate, a Roman appointed by the Ro¬ 
man Emperor. The Temple at Jerusa¬ 
lem was built upon a broad platform of 
rock overlooking the deep ravine upon 
the east, and was separated by another 
deep ravine from the palace, once of 
Solomon, now of Herod, upon the west. 
Adjoining this Temple there had been 
built by Pilate what was at once a 
Roman garrison and a Roman Gov¬ 
ernor’s palace. Its broad halls were 
almost as wide as the Jewish streets, 
and its abundant rooms furnished a 
resting-place for five hundred soldiers, 


65 


besides the rooms for the Roman Gov¬ 
ernor. 

At about six o’clock in the morning 
of April 7, a.d. 34, Pilate, resting in his 
palace in this Tower of Antonia, was 
aroused by turbulent sounds in the 
street below. He was used to the tur¬ 
bulence of the Jewish people. Twice 
he had entered into conflict with the 
priesthood, stirring up the people, and 
had been compelled, by fear of vio¬ 
lence, to withdraw humiliated and de¬ 
feated from the controversy. He 
hastened down, stepped out onto the 
broad space that led directly into the 
Temple courts, and there saw a great 
multitude, growing into a mob. Before 
him stood a few of the priesthood, 
whom he hated, and in their midst a 
single figure, pale, wearied with the 
night’s watching, with some of the 
signs of the ignominy and shame that 


66 


had already been heaped upon Him, his 
hands bound behind his back. But 
something in the soul that looked 
through his eyes made itself felt even 
in the heart of the unemotional Roman. 
He asked the priesthood what they 
wanted. “We ask,” they said, “ratifi¬ 
cation of our sentence. We have 
found this fellow guilty, have con¬ 
demned him to death, and we ask au¬ 
thority to execute the death sentence. 
If he were not guilty, we would not 
have condemned him.” “I'm not so 
sure of that,” said Pilate. “What has 
he done?” 

The priests had prepared themselves 
for this possible exigency, and pro¬ 
ceeded with their new accusation. 
“We have found this fellow,” they said, 
“perverting the people. He has 
claimed to be a king and has set him¬ 
self up against Caesar.” 


67 


Pilate rightly assumed jurisdiction 
of the case, summoned Jesus within the 
fortress for a quieter examination, and 
asked Him for an explanation of these 
charges. Jesus would not defend Him¬ 
self before a dishonest tribunal. But 
the Roman Governor, ignorant alike of 
the character and mission of Jesus, was 
really perplexed. It was his duty to 
prevent and punish sedition. And 
Jesus readily vouchsafed him the ex¬ 
planation he requested in a few brief 
but significant words, whose meaning 
a paraphrase may help to make clear. 

He was a king, but He was no 
preacher of sedition. Who had 
brought this accusation against Him? 
The Jews. When was it ever known 
that the Jewish priesthood complained 
to their Gentile Government of one 
who sought the political emancipation 
of the nation? None knew better than 


68 


Pilate how restive were the people un¬ 
der the Roman yoke. The voices of 
the mob before the judgment seat cry¬ 
ing out for Jesus’ blood were unwitting 
witnesses of his innocence. He was a 
king, but his kingdom was not of this 
world. If it had been, then surely from 
among the hundreds who only four 
days before had accompanied Him to 
Jerusalem, hailing Him as their mon¬ 
arch, some would have been found 
ready to defend his person with their 
lives. Not to found a new dynasty nor 
to frame a new political organization 
had Christ come into the world, but to 
bear witness to the truth. 

Pilate, half pityingly, half contemp¬ 
tuously, replied with his famous ques¬ 
tion, “What is truth?” To this Roman 
realist, knowing only kingdoms that 
are built by the sword and cemented 
by blood, this conception of an invisi- 


69 


ble kingdom of truth seemed but the 
baseless vision of a religious enthusi¬ 
ast. But, though he lacked moral, he 
did not lack political, penetration. It 
was clear that this Galilean rabbi was 
no rival to the Caesars. The suspicions 
which he had from the first entertained 
of the motives of his old-time enemies 
were confirmed, and from this brief 
interview he returned to the accusers 
of Jesus to announce his judgment of 
acquittal. Then commenced the battle 
which waged for certainly an hour or 
more. 

Consider the three figures in this bat¬ 
tle. First, the priesthood: resolute, 
earnest, determined, clamorous, incit¬ 
ing the gathering mob, in order that 
they might wrest from the unwilling 
judge the condemnation which they 
could not expect from his conscience or 
his reason. Second, the prisoner: no 


70 


pen can venture to picture Him—calm, 
unmoved, silent, interposing to the 
false accusations nothing but a solemn 
and witnessing silence. Third, Pilate: 
a Roman; who believed neither in God 
nor in immortality; whose moral sense 
had in it no religious inspiration; 
whose only support in an hour of trial 
was that sense of honor so much 
vaunted and so feeble; who would have 
resented with wrathful indignation the 
charge of cowardice, and yet who 
proved himself a coward in an hour 
that tried his courage. He endeavors 
by various devices to appeal to the 
sympathies of a mob that have no sym¬ 
pathies. One thing he does not do. 
He does not say to that gathering mob: 
“Though the heavens fall, justice shall 
be done. Though he that stands be¬ 
fore me is but a weak enthusiast, with¬ 
out friends, though his execution can 


71 


do no harm and his deliverance may do 
much injury, still I will do justice, come 
what may.” And when, at last, the 
priests cry out in feigned indignation, 
“If thou let this man go thou art not 
Caesar’s friend,” and he foresees his 
own office taken from him by the most 
jealous of the Caesars, he yields to the 
mob and Christ is led away to be cruci¬ 
fied. 

“To do a great right do a little 
wrong.” If there ever were a case in 
which this principle might be invoked 
to justify an act of injustice, Pilate 
might have invoked it. In order to save 
the life of one whom he regarded as a 
harmless enthusiast he would have had 
to hazard the lives of a score or more 
of Roman soldiers, imperil the peace 
and order of the entire community, and 
perhaps sacrifice his own office. Was 


72 


it worth so great a cost to do justice to 
a single man? Safety for himself, for 
the soldiers under his command, for the 
community which he was appointed to 
protect, all seemed to call for Pilate’s 
judgment: “I do not condemn him; 
but take him and execute your own 
sentence upon him.” 

Are there no Pilates in America? no 
men who have no other standards of 
right and wrong than the consequences 
which they can forsee from a proposed 
course of action? no men who have 
been turned from the straight path by 
public clamor? no danger that we shall 
bow to the will of the crowd despite 
the protests of our conscience? no ten¬ 
dency to write across the sky, as 
though it were a divine law, Vox 
Populi; Vox Dei? Whoever in politi¬ 
cal life consents to be a partner in 
putting into effect the passions and 
73 


prejudices of the crowd, or by public 
act justifies their action which in his 
own conscience he condemns, or puts 
his own safety or the safety of others or 
the preservation of peace above doing 
justly, repeats the sin of Pilate. Nor is 
it only in political life that Pilate is 
seen. The broader lesson of this part¬ 
ner in the crime of the crucifixion my 
father has stated with characteristic 
plainness of speech: 

“Very few men ever think of com¬ 
paring themselves with Pontius Pilate, 
or with the soldiers who executed his 
orders, when perhaps there are not 
anywhere in the Bible delineations of 
character which might be more uni¬ 
versally appropriated than these. 
Neither of them had any special hatred 
for the Saviour. Pilate would have 
done his duty if he could have done it 
by any common sacrifice; but, like mul- 


74 


titudes, probably, who will read this 
examination of his character, he was 
not willing to make the sacrifice that 
was necessary in taking the right side. 
The reader fluctuates, perhaps, just as 
he did, between conscience and tempta¬ 
tion, yielding more and more to sin, 
and finding the struggle more hopeless 
the longer it is continued. A religious 
book, an afflictive or a warning provi¬ 
dence, or an hour of solitude, quickens 
conscience and renews combat; but the 
world comes in with its clamors, and 
after a feeble resistance, he gives way 
again—Pilate exactly, in everything 
but the mere form in which the ques¬ 
tion of duty comes before him.” 


75 








The Callous Profiteers 




O F all the cruel punishments of a 
barbaric age, crucifixion was the 
most barbarous. It possessed a bad 
pre-eminence of cruelty in an age when 
fashionable audiences crowded the vast 
amphitheater to applaud the fearful 
horror of gladiatorial combats and fair 
women gave the death signal and 
feasted their sanguinary eyes on the 
ebbing life of the defeated. It was in 
this age that Cicero called crucifixion 
a punishment most inhuman and shock¬ 
ing, and wrote of it that it should be re¬ 
moved from the eyes and ears and the 
very thought of men. Too horrible for 
a Roman citizen, no freeman might be 
subjected to it. It was reserved, with 
rare exceptions, for slaves and foreign¬ 
ers. 

Upon this Gentile cruelty the Jew 


79 


looked with special horror. The cross, 
like the eagle, was the sign of national 
degradation. Its infliction by the Ro¬ 
mans was a badge of Israel’s servitude. 
The ancient law of Moses affixed a pe¬ 
culiar curse to it. To crucify even a 
corpse was to submit it to the greatest 
possible indignity. Thus the agony of 
pain was intensified by the agony of its 
peculiar shame. 

The physical anguish of the cross 
was that of a lingering death. The 
victim’s life was wrested from him in a 
fierce but predetermined battle, that 
lasted always many hours, often sev¬ 
eral days. Every moment of this hope¬ 
less contest added new agony to an 
anguish at first almost unendurable. 
Yet no vital organ was directly 
touched, and the stubborn life sur¬ 
rendered to his invincible foe only after 
a long and protracted siege. Even the 


80 


pitiless, stolid Roman endured not long 
the sight of sufferings at once so pro¬ 
tracted and so intense. Rarely was the 
criminal suffered to die by the mere 
infliction of the cross. A thrust with 
the spear or a blow with the club at 
length put an end to tortures which 
wearied even the patience of spectators. 

Jesus endured the consuming tor¬ 
tures of the cross for nearly six hours; 
then nature gave way. Exhausted by 
the week of conflict in the Temple, by 
the draft upon his sympathies in the 
growing perplexity of his disciples, by 
his foresight of their shattered hopes 
and their impending grief, by his futile 
efforts to save Judas Iscariot, by his 
farewell supper and his night of watch¬ 
ing, by his anguished prayer that He 
might not misunderstand and so fail to 
fulfill his Father’s will, by his trial ex¬ 
periences in the Jewish court and the 


81 


malignant clamor of the mob in Pilate’s 
court, by the cruel scourging and the 
march to death, and by the nearly six 
hours of indescribable suffering on the 
cross, He bowed his head and yielded 
up his spirit to his Father, dying liter¬ 
ally broken-hearted. 

Is there in literature or in history 
any drama in which are portrayed so 
simply and on so small a stage the con¬ 
flicting passions of man? 

The priests exulting in the sufferings 
of their victim and chanting their dev¬ 
il’s anthem: “He trusted in God that 
he would deliver him. Let him de¬ 
liver him if he will have him. King 
of Israel? Let him come down from 
the cross that we may believe in him.” 

The women lamenting for Him. In 
the funeral march they had followed 
the condemned, beating upon their 
breasts and filling the air with their 


82 


outcries. Arrived at the mount of cru¬ 
cifixion, they had offered him a drink 
of sour wine mingled with myrrh, an 
anodyne which, dulling the sense, 
might render the anguish of the cross 
more endurable. 

The penitent brigand, crucified at 
his side, dimly perceiving the conquer¬ 
ing spirit of the dying Christ and 
moved thereby to a late repentance. 

The broken-hearted mother, scarce 
able to endure the sight of her dying 
son, yet, mother-like, unable to with¬ 
draw from it. 

The one faithful friend, faithful even 
unto death, when all else had fled; his 
hopes shattered, his faith confused and 
perplexed, and yet his love unchanged, 
to whom with his parting breath Christ 
intrusted the care of his bereft mother. 
Well was he called the beloved disciple. 

Last and strangest of all, the four 


83 


soldiers who in the midst of this scene 
of tumultuous experience of human 
emotion—gratified hate, tearful pity, 
awakened penitence, broken-hearted 
love—could see nothing but an unac¬ 
customed chance for booty. Ancestors 
of professional gamblers of all classes 
and in all epochs, Henry Ward Beecher 
well described them in his “Lectures to 
Young Men” delivered in Indianapolis 
in 1844: “How marked in every age is 
a gambler’s character! The enraged 
priesthood of ferocious sects taunted 
Christ’s dying agonies; the bewildered 
multitude could shout; but no earthly 
creature but a gambler could be so lost 
to all feeling as to sit down coolly under 
a dying man to wrangle for his gar¬ 
ments and arbitrate their avaricious 
differences by casting dice for his tunic, 
with hands spotted with his spattered 
blood, warm and yet undried upon 


84 


them. The descendants of these pa¬ 
triarchs of gambling, however, have 
taught us that there is nothing possible 
to hell, uncongenial to these, its elect 
saints.” 

The war profiteers of our time are 
the spiritual descendants of these pa¬ 
gan soldiers. 

In the stress of war mothers give 
their sons, wives their husbands, men 
themselves. The whole nation pours 
out its money in a passion of generos¬ 
ity. Never before in the world’s his¬ 
tory was there seen such flaming 
indignation, such weeping pity, such 
generous giving on so large a scale. 

Then the profiteer appears. He 
hears no call to self-sacrifice and ser¬ 
vice; he sees only a chance for gain. 
He takes it. He coins the tears of 
mothers and the blood of their sons 
into gold. He is the vulture of the bat- 


85 


tlefield. He succeeds; he makes a for¬ 
tune; but his fortune is blood money. 
The house he builds, the automobile 
in which he rides, the jewels with 
which he decks his wife and daughters, 
are the medals of his dishonor. 

Is he as callous as he appears? Or 
does his conscience sometimes say to 
him, “God shall bring every work into 
judgment, with every secret thing, 
whether it be good, or whether it be 
evil” ? 


86 


The First Pagan Convert 


















P AGAN religions have worshiped 
men whom they made gods; the 
Christian religion worships a God who 
has made Himself a man. And we can 
understand the divine nature which He 
has come to interpret only as we 
understand the human experience 
through which He imparts it. 

Great men rarely comprehend their 
mission. Did Luther comprehend to 
what the Protestant world would 
grow? Did John Wesley comprehend 
to what Methodism would grow? We 
do not know when Jesus compre¬ 
hended the mission with which He was 
charged. That He grew up sharing the 
belief of his countrymen that Israel 
was God’s favored people and that the 
kingdom of God would be the kingdom 
of Israel is highly probable. That He 


89 


had become convinced before entering 
on his public ministry that God is the 
Father of the whole human race and 
that the kingdom of God is not provin¬ 
cial but world-wide is evident from his 
first sermon preached in the village 
synagogue at Nazareth. To convert 
the people to this larger faith was a 
chief object of his ministry. 

And He had failed. When He first 
announced this faith, the congregation 
mobbed Him. When later He told the 
people that they must imbibe his spirit 
and share in his self-sacrifice, they 
abandoned Him in such numbers that 
He turned sadly to his chosen com¬ 
panions with the question, Will ye 
also go away? When He went up to 
Jerusalem for his final battle with the 
priests and Pharisees, his steadfastness 
written in his face, his companions fol¬ 
lowed, sadly perplexed between their 


90 


hopes and their fears. But they still 
thought that the kingdom would im¬ 
mediately appear. Peter wanted to 
know what recompense they would re¬ 
ceive for their loyalty. James and John 
came asking the first places in the com¬ 
ing kingdom. It is no easy task to dis¬ 
abuse a mind of inherited prejudice. 
When Jesus talked in parables, they 
interpreted Him literally; when He 
talked plainly, they thought He was 
talking in parables. And at times they 
discussed among themselves his teach¬ 
ing and confessed, “We cannot tell 
what he saith.” The last week of con¬ 
flict in the Temple made his meaning 
clear to the ecclesiastics, but not to the 
twelve. Hate comprehended, love did 
not. His disciples could not under¬ 
stand his prophecies because they 
would not believe in the impending 
disaster. 


91 


May I use common words in at¬ 
tempting to portray an uncommon ex¬ 
perience? Then I will say that love 
was the controlling genius of Christ. 
Nowhere does that genius find expres¬ 
sion in more varied experiences than in 
the twenty-four hours before his death. 

In the last meeting with his friends 
not once does Christ ask for comfort 
or strength from them. Only once 
does He indicate the sorrow that op¬ 
presses Him, and then only that He 
may also indicate the strength which 
supports Him: “Ye shall be scattered, 
every man to his own home, and shall 
leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, 
because the Father is with me.” Not 
to receive comfort but to give it has 
He sought this hour. The theme of 
his “table talk” is given in the opening 
sentence: “Let not your heart be 
troubled.” 


92 


After the supper Christ goes out 
with his disciples to what was probably 
a familiar trysting-place, since Judas 
goes straight thither to find Him. He 
has taken every precaution against sur¬ 
prise by asking his three friends to 
watch; and they have not watched, but 
slept. Christ hurries out—to save 
Himself? No! To save them; to give 
them the hint to flee; and then Him¬ 
self to surrender. But this He does 
not do until He has made one more 
effort to save Judas; “Friend, betrayest 
thou the Son of man with a kiss?” 

In the preliminary examination 
Christ can hear through the open door 
the audacious but now thoroughly 
frightened Peter cursing and swearing, 
“I know not this man.” A look from 
the Master suffices; for love sometimes 
speaks more eloquently through the 
eye than through the tongue, and 
93 


Peter, recalled by that look, “went out 
and wept bitterly.” 

Roman law forbade public lamenta¬ 
tion for a criminal. But it is not in the 
power of law to restrain the sympa¬ 
thies of women. The tears of certain 
daughters of Jerusalem, who after 
Christ’s condemnation followed Him 
to the place of his execution, touched 
his heart. He forgot his own suffer¬ 
ings in his forecast of the coming de¬ 
struction of Jerusalem. “Weep,” said 
He, “not for me; weep for yourselves 
and your children.” 

Arrived at the place of execution and 
nailed to the cross, He thought not 
of Himself but of his executioners: 
“Father,” He cried, “forgive them; for 
they know not what they do.” 

To the taunts of the priests, joined in 
by one of the brigands crucified at his 
side, He made no response. But to the 


94 


other brigand, who dimly felt the more 
than royal dignity of the King at his 
side, He breathed a promise of forgive¬ 
ness and a future life. “To-day,” said 
He, “shalt thou be with me in para¬ 
dise.” 

At the foot of the cross were two 
who loved Him. Their reverence 
touched that heart which no suffering 
of his own and no injustice to Himself 
could move to speech. In the broken 
accents of a parting breath, He gave to 
them the last message of his love: 
“Mother—look—thy son; son—look 
—thy mother.” 

A preternatural darkness, a heavy 
atmosphere, an awe-inspiring gloom, a 
singular feeling of helpless insecurity, 
foretold the impending earthquake. 
And then the last cry from the cross 
interpreted for all followers of Christ 


95 


the meaning of death: “Father, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit.” 

And “when the centurion saw that 
He cried out and gave up the ghost he 
said, ‘Truly this man was God’s son.’ ” 

Strange that the first clear recogni¬ 
tion of the divineness of Christ’s char¬ 
acter should come from a Roman 
pagan; stranger still that he should be 
convinced, not by any miracle which 
Jesus wrought, not by any doctrine 
which Jesus taught, but by his death. 
The hour of Christ’s failure was the 
hour of his success. Love came to 
earth to save men from themselves. 
Greed, ambition, cowardice, callous in¬ 
difference, and enthusiastic hate con¬ 
spired to destroy love. And in their 
exultant victory love triumphed. 

The Jewish conception of a kingdom 
of God won by triumphant power has 


96 


continued in the Christian Church to 
this day. Still there are men who look 
for a Christ to come in the clouds and 
his angels with Him to convert the 
world. Still there are men who think 
that the kingdom of God, when it 
comes, will come with observation. 
Still Christ says to them, “How is it 
that ye do not understand?” 

Christ has received his crown—it is 
one of thorns. He has received his 
scepter—the mocking soldiers put it in 
his hands. He has ascended his throne 
—the cross is his throne. For thorns 
and mockery and death willingly borne 
for the sake of others is love’s corona¬ 
tion. Power might win the reluctant 
submission of men through fear; but 
only self-sacrificing love can inspire 
love. We have not to wait for heaven 
to see the glory of God. The song 
which John heard in heaven was that of 


97 


a great chorus seeing upon the earth 
the glory of God: “For thou wast 
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
thy blood out of every kindred, and 
tongue, and people, and nation.” 

The Roman centurion, won by 
Christ’s death to an understanding of 
Christ’s life, was an unconscious 
prophet of this throng. Said a Bulu to 
Miss McKenzie, “I was like a child 
crying in the dark for fear, until the 
day when I knew Jesus. Then it was 
as if my mother put her hand on me.” 


98 



























& 

3 .^ O 

* 

** cv .. 

<$ 

* e > > 

* 0 >-V - ’ 

/ <F ■%■ \ 

'*•** a' <► ‘-'T 7** .0' 'o, 

- <* ** ^ .'^SPS^k- 


o * * 





c> * 

\y °<u * • * 0 

. v *V>* % CV .0 

* «# °JrH' .* 

; .** V a^ : 

> ay *yJ*<L\y ♦ av 


* ... 




< 4 a * ^ » 

.<^ <. *'?.■• 



•*£. * **> 


O * ^ 0 ti> *" l /J ^ {S 

^ ^ • 1 ’ * *<y °si 

.£> A ' . * _ <■ " S V 4 ’ * ■ 

«J, cV ,>VV. A * 

rf -*#W° W 

a^ V v V VipSiPf** ,s s ^ 

o.*- A ^ ♦Tvf. 1 ^ •„« 

x\ • • * «V> O o . * * 

,° " a - \S> ,A L/ , **>_ 






< O 

S 3 > ♦<> 

/ Jr > 

^ <y 

* \ * ° * ^ \> » * Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 



Deacidified using the. Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnes 
Treatment Date: July 2005 


111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 


0 ^ 
J <o- » , ■> * 

► . ft 5) • A y* i 

v 



ip -vV 

» * 9 * * 

* * *■ 

-* •«•* J>' V 

'* % £ .:•»- v 

-'£&: V :«£fe V 


> * aV** _ 

>y£%w* £ % 

* < /\ > * - < V \ fc 

A V _ _ V. ‘ ‘ 







\ 0 v\ 

k V 4. 

< 9 V > 



I, JAN 82 

N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 





C * 





































































